Higher Education in the Age of Access
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October Whitepaper HIGHER EDUCATION IN THE AGE OF ACCESS
Transcript of Higher Education in the Age of Access
October Whitepaper
HIGHER EDUCATION IN THE AGE OF ACCESS
On October 14, 2015, the US Education Department announced that it would begin to offer federal student loans to students attending a few select “coding bootcamps.”
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These bootcamps generally take 6 weeks to complete and cost around $10,000—and promise to turn just about anyone into a programmer.
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The US Education Department estimates that 16,000 people will graduate from them by 2015. Promising strict oversight, the Education Department will work with programs that have partnered with college's .
Federal student loans were designed for institutions of higher education, and yet basically everything we’ve used to define these institutions are absent in these coding camps
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New Territory
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These programs represent a major change in consumer services that are a threat to institutions from higher learning to media.
By utilizing modern technology these alternative programs can empower individuals to get what they want, when they want, without the help of bloated institutions.
New Territory
Adapting to this new age poses a major communications and rebranding challenge.
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To prepare for this we’ll need to look at a how this progression will effect the future of higher-ed in the US.
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To do that we’re going to start at what may seem to be a very unlikely place. A place that’s as American as apple pie and college tuition.
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Malls were places where people used to go to hang out, eat, and shop. Centrally-located with vast expanses in parking, offerings ranging from 20-screen multiplexes to a cornucopia of chain restaurants, and areas for kids, teens and adults to congregate and play, malls were the town squares of suburbia.
REMEMBER MALLS?
But when E-commerce first appeared in the late 1990’s, pundits everywhere were quick to announced the death of the mall.
Why would anyone go out when they could shop at home in their underwear?
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Well, as it turns out the pundits were overlooking one vital shopping mall advantage.
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For most middle-class suburban consumers, “shopping” wasn’t just about procuring goods. The mall was a place to meet other people.
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For the stay at home mom, going to the mall wasn’t a chore, especially when she could sip a latte with her girlfriends while their toddlers played in a fenced in, cushioned play area.
For teens, malls were a place to socialize, to see and be seen in an environment their parents wouldn’t hassle them about.
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But unfortunately, the social advantages couldn’t be preserved forever.
The decline and fall,
of the American Mall
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Much like our current prospective student base, the middle class these malls once catered to is dramatically less financially viable than they used to be. That, and the 2008 recession, resulted is drop in consumerism.
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But economics and demographics aren’t the only forces remaking the retail landscape.
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Mobile and social technologies have had a large impact on consumer shopping behaviors well. And that’s because of one word: Access
Access to information and access to people.
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Access to information.
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According to Nielsen’s 2014 State of the Shopping Center report, 87% of consumers with Smartphones or tablets use these mobile devices when shopping—not to by things—but to research products, browse reviews, compare prices and turn to their peers for advice and ideas about what to purchase via social media.
Access to people.
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While moms may have headed to the mall in order to socialize in days gone by, today they can connect with their friends on Facebook, swap purchase ideas on Pinterest, and even ask for advice about what to buy using Snapchat, Periscope or other more-or-less real-time visual social media.
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The evolution of retail shopping in this changing landscape be quite easily compared to that of higher education.
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Elite universities are headed the same was the luxury mall: continued success with increasingly limited access.
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The rise of skills-based online institutions and those focusing intensely on regional identity or unique, differentiating programs echoes the “boutiquing” of retail, where small stores survive through intense focus, differentiation, and a connection to the community.
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Just as e-commerce and physical retail are beginning to feel out a new kind of symbiotic relationship, many institutions are beginning to reach out and partner with specialized online players such as coding academies.
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Just as retailers are unable to deny the impact of sites like Yelp and Google Reviews on the performance of their businesses, institutions of higher learning better start listening to sites like RateMyProfessor and Niche— and heeding what they read— before it’s too late. Today’s consumers are increasingly turning to review sites when they need to make a buying decision.
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These changes are coming after a long period of institutionalized higher education, developed from social and cultural movements—Post WWII boom, the GI Bill and Space Age competition.
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Bolstered by American Media weaving a college education into the American dream, Colleges and Universities expanded their physical plants and administrative units, adding more and better facilities to compete with an increasingly “consumerist” base of prospective student who’d been raised to expect certain amenities. They revamped their curricula to become more relevant to the job market.
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Institutions of higher learning became, in varying degrees, “one-stop-education-shops” where aspirational, middle class consumers could go in order to get the education they needed to achieve the American Dream. In other words, they became malls.
October Whitepaper
THE AGE OF ACCESS
Institutions of higher learning were, by definition, designed to be repositories of information.
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They transmitted information to new generations
They were gatekeepers to information
They gave students access to scholarly texts
The grades and degrees they gave were the only signifier of a successful transmission of information that employers could trust.
Social interactions on campus prepared students to deal with the kinds of interpersonal relationships they’d have to deal with later on in lives.
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Student life and interaction between students was important as well.
Social interaction and access to people took the form of “socials” or “balls” and even sporting events.
Access to networks of alumni was often promoted as a perk of attendance.
Fraternities and sororities formed bonds that went beyond graduation.
Digital technology and the Internet has taken knowledge from the gatekeeper and made it easily accessible.
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But technology now available to us in this Age of Access turn much of these traditions on their heads.
Open online courses have released the information that was once relegated to the classroom.
Social media allows us to connect with the contacts we would have made in college.
While the past several decades have been marked by the fracturing of a wide range of institutions across American society—the breakup of the Bell Systems in 1982, the steady erosion of government programs implemented during the more progressive decades earlier in the 20th century, the fragmentation of mass media brought about by technology—institutions of higher learning have been remarkably resistant to change. Until now.
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The Great Fracturing
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The recent decisions by the Federal Government to offer student loans to coding bootcamps is a clear indication that the inevitable fracturing of higher education as we knew it is underway.
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It’s a clear admission that the systems that have been in places for decades no longer work when it comes to preparing people for the workplace.
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If you can learn what you need to learn to land a 6-figure job in 6 weeks for under $20,000, why bother spending 4-5 years and potentially hundreds of thousands of dollars to learn skills that could be out of date before you graduate?
College as we know it is too slow, too expensive, and, for the most part, hasn’t adapted to the realities of the Age of Access. They’re lumbering dinosaurs and alternative learning channels like coding bootcamps are like the first mammals scurrying about under the feet of the great lizards. They may not look like much now, but they’re the future. And the dinosaurs don’t even notice they’re there.
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Here’s what we think the future might look like.
Instead of a once-in-a-lifetime learning experience with a beginning and an end, “college” may become something that we experience in fragments as we need it throughout our lives and careers.
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Students graduating from high school may opt to jumpstart their careers through intense, focused vocational training and then move on towards developing the “softer” skills of a traditional liberal education as they progress in their careers and need to acquire more sophisticated critical thinking, communication, and collaboration skills.
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These may be provided by institutions that we used to call “colleges,” but they’ll be a lot smaller, geared towards more intensive instruction over a much shorter period of time. When they need to learn additional skills in order to stay current in their careers, people may turn to other educational providers geared towards providing that kind of instruction, either in person or online.
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Enterprising students may just opt to learn skills on their own from online sources followed by taking a standardized test to earn a “badge” or other microcredential recognized by employers.
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Workers may contribute monthly to their Educational Maintenance Organization, an organization structure much like health insurance companies that allows students to continue their educations at ore-negotiated group rates. Adult learners may join the educational equivalent of health club where they pay one monthly fee to take all the classes offered by the “brain gym” they want.
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Diplomas may be replaced by “badges” or other microcredntials indicating mastery of particular skills.
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While these predictions are difficult to make—2065 might not look anything like what we just described—we are quite certain that the fragmentation of education and the utilization of technology that gives individuals autonomy over their education, will shape the final outcome.
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These new institutions of higher learning will need a new story to tell. As they progress so will their marketing, communication and technological needs.
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